Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/500

480 in Canada beyond the original centre, the whites began really to press upon communities of natives, that bargain and contracts for territory began to be matters of interest. It may be that the Dominion is to have in the future some of the troubles which we have encountered.

The explanations, qualifications, and abatements to which this alleged claim on behalf of the British Government is to be rightfully subjected, reduce it in such a degree as to leave but little if anything on the credit side. Before our Revolutionary War the dealings of that Government, as such, with the Indians are hardly distinguishable from those of our own colonial authorities. Since the establishment of our Government the matter is more complicated. While we were still colonies Britain sought, as we did, alliances with Indians against Indians; our wars with the savages were in her interest as well as our own, and the declaration of war against them came more than once from the other side of the water. When we were struggling for our independence, agents of the British came and resided and intrigued here to set the savages against us, and succeeded in so doing. After we had achieved our independence, Britain, by retaining the western posts which she had covenanted to surrender, kept us more than ten years at warfare with her Indian allies. More than this, Britain secured the alliance of Indian tribes for working immense havoc and horrors to her colonists, on the solemn pledge on her part to remunerate the savages. She did not do so, but left them, impoverished and infuriated, on our hands at the end of the war. Indeed, it may be safely affirmed that some of the worst aggravations and strifes with the Indians on our borders till the close of the war of 1812 were from the entail or the renewal of hostile relations for which the British were largely if not malignantly responsible.

We strike at the very root of this assumption in behalf of the wise and kindly British policy towards the American